Tag Archives: insurrection

national news

Republicans turn on Trump

These congressional hearings are getting juicier and seem to be tightening the noose around Donald J. Trump’s proverbial neck.

We heard from two Georgia election officials about how Trump sought to bully them into “finding” enough votes to steal the election from Joe Biden. We also heard from a Georgia secretary of state who also wondered out loud how The Donald could brazenly seek to break the law.

These all are Republicans, who were ostensibly Trump supporters until the former POTUS decided to seek to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Jan. 6 hearing: Ga. election worker and her mother say Trump’s ‘lies’ led to death threats (msn.com)

The most gut-wrenching testimony, though, came from two Georgia election workers who had their reputations dragged through the mud. Trump and his lawyer, Rudolf Giuliani, singled out two women by name as seeking to dump illegal ballots.

The women told of the threats against their lives. According to Yahoo News: In a hearing before the House select panel investigating the events that led to the Capitol riot, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, an election worker in Fulton County, testified that false claims made by the former president, his personal lawyer and their allies about her and her mother, “Lady” Ruby Freeman, a temporary election worker, “turned my world upside down.”

It’s important to understand something about these two women: They are not public officials. They are volunteer poll workers who dedicate their time to public service. Yet they became targets of The Donald and his thoroughly disgraced — and disgraceful — lawyer. They spoke blatant lies about these women who today told their side of the tragic story.

I am awaiting word now from Trump and how he’s going to spin the things he said about Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. He only will illustrate even more graphically his despicable nature.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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1/6 hearing drama builds

Who could have thought that congressional hearings would produce so much drama?

I am one who anticipates it with today’s scheduled hearing on the insurrection that occurred 1/6. The star witness at the televised hearing will be a Georgia state election official whom Donald Trump demanded “find” more than 11,000 votes that would have turned the state’s electoral outcome from favoring Joe Biden to endorsing Trump.

Brad Raffensberger, a Republican Georgia secretary of state and acknowledged Trump supporter, refused to do The Donald’s bidding. What’s more, the world has heard Trump’s voice making the demand. Raffensberger, you see, had the foresight to record the phone conversation.

I am going to wonder how the Trumpkins are going to deny Trump said what we know that he said.

Let the drama continue.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Don’t swing and miss, Mr. AG!

Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey and ex-federal prosecutor, has issued a stern warning to the 1/6 House select committee.

It is that if it recommends criminal charges should be filed against Donald J. Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection on 1/6, it had better have it buttoned up and secure for a conviction.

The committee — or Attorney General Merrick Garland — cannot afford to “swing and miss” on this matter if an indictment is to be issued.

Christie, a one-time Donald Trump GOP presidential primary opponent who then became an ally of the POTUS, possesses strong opinions and is able to articulate them sharply and cogently.

He does not believe that Merrick Garland ultimately is going to seek a criminal indictment against Trump. Why? It carries too much risk of a failed prosecution, Christie said this past weekend.

I agree with Chrisie on one point: The House panel and the attorney general cannot afford to get this one wrong. I will disagree, if only nominally, with whether Garland is going to wimp out on seeking an indictment.

Merrick Garland, to my eyes, appears to be a careful lawyer. He is studious and fair, or so his friends have said about him. He also is meticulous and careful to dot every “i” and cross every “t” before proceeding.

That makes me believe an indictment, if it comes, will be ironclad.

That is my hope … and I’m sticking with it to the finish line.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Pelosi is not part of this story

I generally don’t like responding to Internet trolls, but one guy who follows my blog keeps insisting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should’ve done a better job of “securing” the Capitol prior to the 1/6 insurrection.

Here’s what I found out: The Speaker of the House is not in charge of Capitol security. That’s the responsibility of the Capitol Police Board, which oversees the US Capitol Police and approves requests for National Guard assistance. Jane L. Campbell, president and CEO of the US Capitol Historical Society, says that “the Speaker of the House does not oversee security of the US Capitol, nor does this official oversee the Capitol Police Board.”

This comes from a CNN fact-check of a comment that came from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, one of Donald Trump’s staunchest congressional defenders. To be sure, I am certain my blog follower won’t accept that the answer comes from CNN, which he likely considers to be a tainted news outlet, a purveyor of “fake news.”

My point, thus, is this: Speaker Pelosi is not part of the problem that befell the Capitol Police as its brave officers fought with the traitors who sought to overturn the 2020 election on 1/6.

She might have her share of faults … as a fallible human being. Capitol security isn’t one of them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Indict him, Mr. AG!

The more I consider the ramifications of what is transpiring in Washington, DC, the more convinced I become that Attorney General Merrick Garland must hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions as president of the United States.

Reporters asked Garland if he is watching the televised hearings of the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. He said he cannot watch all of it live, but will catch up with all of it later; then he said we can “rest assured” that his prosecutors are watching it intently.

The evidence, to my eyes, appears to be mounting that implicates Trump in conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. He knew The Big Lie was wrong, but kept telling it. He knew that Vice President Pence had no authority to overturn the electoral result, but kept hectoring the VP to do it. The mob of traitors threatened Pence’s life, and Trump knew that, too, but he did nothing to stop the violence.

Merrick Garland said no one is above the law. Where I come from, when someone says “no one,” he means every human being on Earth … and that includes the president of the U.S.A.

So, if the evidence leads the attorney general to the former POTUS’s mansion in south Florida, that compels him to ask a grand jury to indict the crooked man.

House committee members keep talking publicly about having “enough evidence” to recommend a criminal prosecution. My one wish is that they would stop saying such things so loudly; it tends to make my heart flutter in nervous anticipation.

Still, I have listened to the evidence presented during the three days of televised hearings and have concluded that AG Garland has enough to proceed.

Donald J. Trump needs to be held accountable for the hideous crisis he has launched. He has broken the law by pressuring state election officials to “find” votes that would reverse an electoral result. He has threatened the existence of our democratic process by telling The Big Lie.

Now he has possibly engaged in witness tampering by suggesting that he would issue blanket pardons to the 1/6 insurrectionist traitors if he (God forbid!) returns to the White House.

I am waiting anxiously to see if the attorney general agrees.

Please, Mr. AG, make me happy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

This isn’t ‘normal’

Make no mistake that I will go to my grave wondering how in the name of sane thought certain congressional Republicans can compare the 1/6 insurrection to a normal “tour group” walking through the Capitol Building.

Yet … they are. They continue to insist that despite what our “lying eyes” are telling us, the attack on our nation’s Capitol was no big deal. The traitors who smashed through windows, waged hand-to-hand combat with Capitol cops and defecated on the floor bore no resemblance to a “normal” tour group.

The televised congressional hearings continue to engrave in our memories that the frontal assault was organized as such and carried out just as radical groups intended.

What continues to astound me is that the congressmen and women who barf out the nonsense about 1/6 have voters back home who actually endorse the perversion that pours out of their respective pie holes.

This is a great country. Its greatness, though, is being stained — indelibly, I fear — by the nimrods conducted the insurrection against our democratic process.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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So many ‘what ifs’

Games of “what if” at times fill my noggin with thoughts that require some analysis. My skull is filling up at this moment with a number of “what if” scenarios relating to the probe of the 1/6 insurrection.

What if Attorney General Merrick Garland decides to indict Donald J. Trump on seditious conspiracy charges? My hunch is that he would need to fast-track a trial in a hurry, to get it done prior to the start of the 2024 Republican Party presidential primary season.

What if the AG indicts Trump but doesn’t have full confidence that he can obtain a conviction? Garland would be tempting fate beyond all reasonable measure if that’s the case.

What if the AG decides, “I cannot bring an indictment forward”? He then becomes, in the words of a dear friend, “The Neville Chamberlain of the insurrection.” Chamberlain was the British prime minister who stood by and allowed Adolf Hitler in 1938 to annex the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. Garland might be tarred for life if he doesn’t hold Trump accountable for what I believe he did on 1/6.

What if U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney loses her GOP primary election in Wyoming? The courageous congresswoman who voted to impeach Trump becomes a lame duck. Then she dons the brass knuckles as she fires up her rhetoric.

Finally, what if Donald John Trump gets convicted of seditious conspiracy?

He’s done as a political force … which would please me greatly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

It was an ‘insurrection’

I do not intend to pussyfoot around politically correct terminology when I refer to the events of 1/6.

Thus, when I talk about the attack on Capitol Hill that occurred that day, I will use the term I have used regularly since it occurred. It was an insurrection against the United States government.

I have needed little persuasion to come to that conclusion, but the televised hearings we have watched over the course of three days have sealed the deal for me.

Some media outlets are careful to avoid using that term. Some right-wing media organizations have issued bans on the use of the term. The pundits who work for those organizations point out — correctly, I acknowledge — that no formal charges of “insurrection” have been filed against multiple suspects already under indictment.

While that is technically true, I should add that some individuals have been accused of “seditious conspiracy,” which by my reckoning is virtually the same thing as insurrection.

Just as I have declared that the attack on our system of government was not a spontaneous “riot” that erupted because some “protesters” got carried away with their anger, I will insist on calling the assault that day an act of insurrection.

Think briefly for a moment. What kind of spontaneity would result in individuals carrying zip ties, firearms and assorted clubs and other weapons to Capitol Hill that day? They went there to overturn the Electoral College tabulation that resulted in Joe Biden being elected president of the United States.

We now are hearing mounting evidence that Donald Trump conspired with his senior aides to block Biden from becoming POTUS. I want the Justice Department to hold anyone accountable for what they did on that day … and by “anyone,” that includes the man who masqueraded as president for four years before being shown the door.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

1/6 was no ‘riot’

I have just made a command decision on how I intend to use this blog. So … here goes.

From this moment forward, I am not going to refer to the 1/6 assault on Capitol Hill as a “riot.” I am now convinced beyond any sort of reasonable doubt that the events of that terrible day were orchestrated and planned in advance.

Thus, the term “riot,” which suggests a spontaneous eruption of violence, is no longer the term of art I shall use to describe what occurred.

I’ll use other nouns to describe the attack on our democracy. Assault and attack come immediately to mind.

Long ago, I determined the Capitol Hill assault was an insurrection against the democratic process. I made that determination even though no one has been charged formally — not yet anyway — with committing an insurrection. But it was … an insurrection.

To refer to that event as a “riot” demeans it. It reduces its significance to something less than what the assailants wanted to accomplish. They threatened to kill Vice President Pence and House Speaker Pelosi. Donald Trump said a day or two before the event that it will be “wild.” He knew what was coming!

It was a planned event! Therefore, I am going to forgo terminology that — to my mind — lessens the importance of what happened that day on Capitol Hill.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Let’s hear from Pence!

After the testimony concluded today in the House select committee’s televised hearing, some of the after-action commentary posed a fascinating question.

Why haven’t we heard a word from former Vice President Mike Pence about what went down on 1/6? 

So, here’s a corollary question: Can the committee ask for the VP to testify to set the record straight on what he heard, what was said, what he did and what Donald Trump pressured him to do on that day?

Today’s testimony focused on the VP’s role on the day of the insurrection. It was to perform a ceremonial duty in counting the Electoral College ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election. The traitorous mob sought to end that process by storming Capitol Hill on 1/6.

Donald Trump pressured Pence to “show courage” by throwing out the votes cast for Joe Biden and insert phony votes cast for Trump. The vice president resisted. He told Trump that was a non-starter.

So … why not hear from the vice president directly? Why not summon the VP to Capitol Hill to tell the committee what it needs to hear about the measures Trump took to pressure Pence to break the law and violate the U.S. Constitution?

Pence already has said out loud that “no man” can change the votes of the people, that there’s nothing “more un-American” than seeking to override will of the voters.

The former vice president has a political future to consider. Testifying before the committee and condemning the former Imbecile in Chief would rile the GOP base that Pence would need were he to run for president in 2024.

Then again, Pence and Trump have returned to the non-relationship they had prior to Pence running as VP on the ticket led by Trump in 2016.

My wish? Issue a summons to the former vice president, set him down in front of the House select committee and get to testify — under oath — to what went down on 1/6.

A lot of people already have put words in Pence’s mouth already. We need to hear from the man himself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com